Letter from Frankfurt

By

Edward Roby

June 11, 2001 5:00 pm GMT

A generation of young women used to skirt the sinister shadows of Ostpark on their way home from the office. But Frankfurt has been cleaning up its act and its streets. Long Germany's unchallenged street-crime capital, the money mecca on the Main has suddenly lost its title to more dangerous game in Hamburg and Berlin.

The gentrification of Frankfurt owes much to the influx of bankers and affluent service professionals who have priced blue-collar workers and their employers out of the region. Even Taunus Anlage, a leafy triangle...